Thursday, January 24, 2019

Kings of the Yukon - An Alaskan River Journey ~ Adam Weymouth

I spent the last few weeks of 2018 paddling along the Yukon and the best thing was I didn't even know I wanted to go. Hadn't planned it in the diary, no travel insurance, no fretting about getting there. The canoe held up after a few dicey moments over some rapids, and the grizzlies spared us. I've stopped off hither and yon and learned a lot about Alaska, a country that is the size of France, Germany, Italy and the British Isles combined (population 277 million) and yet is home to just 741,894 people...and 400,000 of those live around Anchorage, leaving an awful lot of square-mile-per-person to go round the remainder.

I am armed with enough Did-You-Know facts to keep me going for years...

That the best way to make money in remotest Alaska now is to star in a reality TV show like Life Below Zero...

That grizzly bears are moving further north and mating with polar bears. The world now has pizzlies. In my mind I'm imagining something a bit zebra-patterned but I could be wrong. I'm not even going to 'google' it.

I know that the Pacific salmon are also migrating further north and adapting genetically. They could one day meet up with the Atlantic salmon via the North West passage and heaven knows what will happen then. It is between twenty and fifty million years since their common ancestor was separated by the 'Miocene cooling of the Arctic Ocean' making the water too cold to cross. The prediction is that inevitably a single net will one day catch both species.

I can report that Bookhound visibly paled at the potential for the gene pool dilution of his beloved Atlantics.

At this point maybe I should insert this helpful guide to the life cycle of the salmon, I do appreciate that not everyone lives with a man who knows it all and shares it willingly with his dozing attentive wife.

This new-found knowledge is all thanks to Adam Weymouth's book Kings of the Yukon - An Alaskan River Journey . The book is a wondrous mix of the journey through wilderness country, meeting fascinating people along the way (it's a bit sparsely populated, Adam does well to find anyone), looking at the landscape and the impact of the twenty-first century on resources and so much more. Presenting a land that is a microcosm of a natural world and humanity under pressure, the observations increasing as the journey progresses, and Adam Weymouth finds himself increasingly in tune with the country and its people and their generous and welcoming hospitality. Sufficient enough to hear the bass notes as well as the top notes, the dissonance, destruction and displacement. The power of the land and its significance is both mighty and humbling.

Some of the facts left me horrified and anguished by turns, not least the forcible removal of the First Nation children to boarding schools miles from home where their native traits, language and traditions would be forcibly and cruelly erased to be replaced with something more acceptable. 80% of children in one community had been sexually abused by a single priest during this experience. Imagine the continuing trauma from that in people's lives; little wonder that drug and alcohol abuse is so rife.

I'm also reminded of favourite books like The Snow Geese by William Fiennes where no judgements are made about the people, and if you read Kings of the Yukon for no other reason than to meet Mary Dementieff then I can vouch that your reading time will not have been wasted.

'When she was seven she was taken to the Holy Cross Mission Orphanage...on the recommendation of one of the priests...her father was dead and her mother was incapable of looking after her. She was out of hand, the Jesuit priest said, and her mother was not in the habit of questioning the opinions of the church.

And the parting...

'Her mother stood on the riverbank, her eyes raw and red as she watched her daughter shipped off ...for most kids the expensive trip on the steamer was one way and they would not return home until they were eighteen...'

But don't be downcast because Mary is made of tough stuff. She copes with the discipline and comes good, will marry, have twelve children and adopt another, and her life story is a remarkable one of resilience and fortitude steeped in the traditions of her people, and still driving her boat down the river to her summer fish camp at the age of eighty four.

The so-much-more, that struck me about Kings of the Yukon, emerged in my mind as we reached the final leg of the journey. That the fate of the salmon, trapped, blocked, caught, removed and so often thwarted in their attempts to swim up their home rivers to spawn, in a strange way mirrored the lives of the people. The plight of both similar in many ways and the two seeming inextricably entwined. I sensed a deep concern too about the salmon still being there for the next generation to catch in the traditional way, and the next generation being interested enough to even try. Whilst the elders do their best to hold onto the heritage it is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.

This was a real and unexpected surprise of a book and how delighted I am that it has recently won the The Sunday Times / Peters Fraser and Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award. So well deserved, beautifully written and just the ticket for an unexpected winter journey from the armchair.

Talking of Alaska, did anyone see Michael Portillo’s recent Great Train Journey across the country. It was stunning and clearly impressed Michael, and in a nice way I felt I already knew the place thanks to this book.

And of course if you live there, or nearby, or have visited I would love to hear your thoughts...

Comments

Kings of the Yukon - An Alaskan River Journey ~ Adam Weymouth

I spent the last few weeks of 2018 paddling along the Yukon and the best thing was I didn't even know I wanted to go. Hadn't planned it in the diary, no travel insurance, no fretting about getting there. The canoe held up after a few dicey moments over some rapids, and the grizzlies spared us. I've stopped off hither and yon and learned a lot about Alaska, a country that is the size of France, Germany, Italy and the British Isles combined (population 277 million) and yet is home to just 741,894 people...and 400,000 of those live around Anchorage, leaving an awful lot of square-mile-per-person to go round the remainder.

I am armed with enough Did-You-Know facts to keep me going for years...

That the best way to make money in remotest Alaska now is to star in a reality TV show like Life Below Zero...

That grizzly bears are moving further north and mating with polar bears. The world now has pizzlies. In my mind I'm imagining something a bit zebra-patterned but I could be wrong. I'm not even going to 'google' it.

I know that the Pacific salmon are also migrating further north and adapting genetically. They could one day meet up with the Atlantic salmon via the North West passage and heaven knows what will happen then. It is between twenty and fifty million years since their common ancestor was separated by the 'Miocene cooling of the Arctic Ocean' making the water too cold to cross. The prediction is that inevitably a single net will one day catch both species.

I can report that Bookhound visibly paled at the potential for the gene pool dilution of his beloved Atlantics.

At this point maybe I should insert this helpful guide to the life cycle of the salmon, I do appreciate that not everyone lives with a man who knows it all and shares it willingly with his dozing attentive wife.

This new-found knowledge is all thanks to Adam Weymouth's book Kings of the Yukon - An Alaskan River Journey . The book is a wondrous mix of the journey through wilderness country, meeting fascinating people along the way (it's a bit sparsely populated, Adam does well to find anyone), looking at the landscape and the impact of the twenty-first century on resources and so much more. Presenting a land that is a microcosm of a natural world and humanity under pressure, the observations increasing as the journey progresses, and Adam Weymouth finds himself increasingly in tune with the country and its people and their generous and welcoming hospitality. Sufficient enough to hear the bass notes as well as the top notes, the dissonance, destruction and displacement. The power of the land and its significance is both mighty and humbling.

Some of the facts left me horrified and anguished by turns, not least the forcible removal of the First Nation children to boarding schools miles from home where their native traits, language and traditions would be forcibly and cruelly erased to be replaced with something more acceptable. 80% of children in one community had been sexually abused by a single priest during this experience. Imagine the continuing trauma from that in people's lives; little wonder that drug and alcohol abuse is so rife.

I'm also reminded of favourite books like The Snow Geese by William Fiennes where no judgements are made about the people, and if you read Kings of the Yukon for no other reason than to meet Mary Dementieff then I can vouch that your reading time will not have been wasted.

'When she was seven she was taken to the Holy Cross Mission Orphanage...on the recommendation of one of the priests...her father was dead and her mother was incapable of looking after her. She was out of hand, the Jesuit priest said, and her mother was not in the habit of questioning the opinions of the church.

And the parting...

'Her mother stood on the riverbank, her eyes raw and red as she watched her daughter shipped off ...for most kids the expensive trip on the steamer was one way and they would not return home until they were eighteen...'

But don't be downcast because Mary is made of tough stuff. She copes with the discipline and comes good, will marry, have twelve children and adopt another, and her life story is a remarkable one of resilience and fortitude steeped in the traditions of her people, and still driving her boat down the river to her summer fish camp at the age of eighty four.

The so-much-more, that struck me about Kings of the Yukon, emerged in my mind as we reached the final leg of the journey. That the fate of the salmon, trapped, blocked, caught, removed and so often thwarted in their attempts to swim up their home rivers to spawn, in a strange way mirrored the lives of the people. The plight of both similar in many ways and the two seeming inextricably entwined. I sensed a deep concern too about the salmon still being there for the next generation to catch in the traditional way, and the next generation being interested enough to even try. Whilst the elders do their best to hold onto the heritage it is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.

This was a real and unexpected surprise of a book and how delighted I am that it has recently won the The Sunday Times / Peters Fraser and Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award. So well deserved, beautifully written and just the ticket for an unexpected winter journey from the armchair.

Talking of Alaska, did anyone see Michael Portillo’s recent Great Train Journey across the country. It was stunning and clearly impressed Michael, and in a nice way I felt I already knew the place thanks to this book.

And of course if you live there, or nearby, or have visited I would love to hear your thoughts...

Constants...

Team Tolstoy

Team TolstoyA year-long shared read of War & Peace through the centenary year of Count Lyev Nikolayevich Tolstoy's death, starting on his birthday, September 9th 2010.
Everyone is welcome to board the troika and read along, meeting here on the 9th of every month to chat in comments about the book.

Team Tolstoy BookmarkDon't know your Bolkonskys from your Rostovs?
An aide memoire that can be niftily printed and laminated into a double-sided bookmark.

Port Eliot Festival

Copyright

I try to be extremely careful about any images used on this blog, most of them are my own and if not I check permissions for use very carefully.
If you think I have breached copyright rules in any way please let me know.